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Thursday, April 29, 2010

Via Xinhua, this is the first time I (as a commoner) am hearing of this disease. I would like to know about this disease and it's effects as it sounds dangerous and as all disease transmitting from animals, this can spread.

" One more person has died of Rift Valley Fever, driving the overall death toll of the disease in South Africa since Feb. 13 to 12, the country's authorities announced on Wednesday.

South African National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) said the latest death had occurred in the Western Cape Province.

The person was from the Oudtshoorn area, an official with the NICD said.

This was the first Rift Valley Fever death in the Western Cape in the current outbreak.

The disease has affected thousands of farm animals and 150 people in the Free State, Northern Cape, Eastern Cape and North West provinces, according to the South African Press Association (SAPA).

In humans, the disease was mostly associated with people who had direct contact with blood or tissues of infected animals, SAPA reported.

The majority of those affected were people working on farms, veterinary workers and abattoirs.The fever is associated with mild, flu-like symptoms."

2 comments:

WHO says that "Human infections have also resulted from the bites of infected mosquitoes, most commonly the Aedes mosquito." This part doesn't ease the mind:"While most human cases are relatively mild, a small percentage of patients develop a much more severe form of the disease. This usually appears as one or more of three distinct syndromes: ocular (eye) disease (0.5-2% of patients), meningoencephalitis (less than 1%) or haemorrhagic fever (less than 1%)."http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs207/en/